Pacer Harshit Rana may have ended the Sydney ODI as one of the heroes of India\u2019s nine-wicket win, but behind the scenes came a moment of blunt honesty from head coach Gautam Gambhir.<\/p>\n
With outside criticism swirling over Rana\u2019s place in the XI and murmurs of \u201cfavouritism\u201d linked to his Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) connection, Gambhir reportedly laid it out plain: \u201cPerform kar, warna bahar bitha doonga.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Rana\u2019s childhood coach Shravan Kumar, Gambhir\u2019s message was a mix of scolding and motivation.<\/p>\n
As per a Times of India report, Rana called Shravan before the match, admitting the weight of expectations pressing on him and his determination to shut out the critics\u2014a goal Gambhir\u2019s words ultimately helped him achieve.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe called me and told me that he wanted to shut the outside noise with his performance. I just said, believe in yourself. I know some cricketers say he is close to Gambhir. But Gambhir knows how to identify talent, and he backs them. He has backed a lot of cricketers, and they have done wonders for their team,\u201d Shravan told TOI.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe, in fact, scolded Harshit badly. He told him directly, \u2018perform kar, warna bahar bitha doonga.\u2019 He sends a clear message to whoever you are,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Rana, 23, had managed only two wickets in the first two ODIs and was under pressure to justify his selection ahead of Arshdeep Singh. In Sydney, he delivered \u2014 grabbing 4 for 39 in 8.4 overs as India bowled out Australia for 236.<\/p>\n
He will return to action for the five-match T20I series against Australia, which will get underway next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pacer Harshit Rana may have ended the Sydney ODI as one of the heroes of India\u2019s nine-wicket win,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[144698,64,63,740,144699,105556,144700,144701,144702,144703,144704,144705,85,144706],"class_list":["post-242667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-indvsaus","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-cricketmotivation","tag-cricketnews","tag-cricketperformance","tag-gautamgambhir","tag-harshitrana","tag-indiacricket","tag-indiancricketteam","tag-kkrconnection","tag-sports","tag-sydneyodi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}